Google says it's too expensive to provide wage data to government

The U.S. Department of Labor requested salary information from Google, but the tech giant has refused to hand it over. Google claims that retrieving the data would be too costly.

The Labor Department filed a lawsuit against Google because it wants its salary records. The department is saying that Google is supposed to comply with the request because they are a government contractor. Last month, the department said it found systemic compensation disparities against women.

Last Friday, Google said it would take them about 500 hours and $100,000 to comply with the agency's request. It also said that the requests from the Labor Department was over-broad in scope or reveal confidential data.

@FortuneMagazine Ridiculous! Data extracts based on gender and salary aren't that expensive or complicated to run. Disappointed in you Google.

A spokesperson for Google said the requests includes the private contact information of thousands of employees. The spokesperson added that they safeguard the information rigorously.

Google's attorney, Lisa Barnett Sween, complained that Google has already spent around nine minutes (approx. $500,000) worth of revenue trying to compile the data it doesn't want to give to the Department of Labor.

Google believes there is no gender pay gap within its company. In the state they released, they said they were committed to their affirmative action obligations, as well as to improving their workforce's diversity.

Google continued to say that they have worked hard to comply with the Department of Labor's current audit and last year they provided thousands of records, which included records related to compensation. Google added that they are hoping to continue to work with the department in order to resolve the matter.